By tradition, lame duck presidents do not accomplish much. They must narrow their legislative focus to a few significant priorities that will figure prominently when their legacies are assessed. In particular, they tend to focus on foreign policy–where Congress is traditionally more deferential to presidential leadership. But that has not been the case this year, as deference is in rather short-supply on the Hill. On issues ranging from the war in Iraq to the refusal of Congressional leaders to schedule votes on trade agreements that have already been signed with Colombia, Peru, Panama and Korea, Congress is throwing its weight around. Another area where the Bush administration is having a hard time getting ‘traction’ is on the nuclear agreement it reached two years ago with India. That agreement is at the core of the Bush administration’s efforts to seal closer relations with the world’s largest democracy. As final negotiations get underway this week in Washington, the stakes are high–hundreds of billions of dollars in sales of weapons systems and nuclear technology may be at risk if the deal falls through:
As the Asia-Pacific region becomes increasingly important in U.S. foreign policy and security calculus, India stands as a critical partner. We may get a good idea this week whether U.S. negotiators can arrive at a deal that expands our relationship while protecting non-proliferation goals, or whether the United States and India are destined to wind up as ships that passed in the night.
